TRANSCRIPT: ABC News/Facebook/WMUR Republicans Debate

Jan. 5, 2008

Page 8 of 36

Ron's analysis is really seriously flawed. The idea that the
attack took place because of American foreign policy is precisely the
reason I handed back a $10 million check to a Saudi prince who gave me
the money at ground zero for the twin towers fund and then put out a
press release saying America should change its foreign policy.

GIULIANI: It seems to me, if you don't face this squarely --
there's an Islamic, terrorism threat against us. It's an existential
threat. It has nothing to do with our foreign policy. It has to do
with their ideas, their theories, the things that they have done and
the way they've perverted their religion into a hatred of us.

And what's at stake are the things that are best about us: our
freedom of religion, our freedom for women, our right to vote, our
free economic system.

Our foreign policy is irrelevant -- totally irrelevant. If you
read what they write, if you bother to listen to what they say, this
comes out of their own perverted thinking.

PAUL: Charlie?

GIBSON: Go ahead.

PAUL: Let me try to explain so you can understand this better.

Try to visualize how we would react if they did that to us, if a
country, say China, came that great distance across the ocean, and
they say, "We want you to live like us. We want you to have our
economic system. We want bases on your land. We want to protect our
oil."

Even if we do that with good intentions -- even if the Chinese
did that with good intentions, we would all be together and we'd be
furious.

ROMNEY: I'd read what they write to one another. And that's why
when someone like Sayyid Qutb lays out the philosophy of radical
jihadism and says, "We want to kill..."

PAUL: And what you're saying...

ROMNEY: Let me complete.

Wants to kill Anwar Sadat, when there's the assassination of
Anwar Sadat, it has nothing to do with us.

The reason -- why did they kill Madam Bhutto? It has nothing to
do with us. This has to do with a battle that is going on within the
world of Islam, of radical, violent jihadists trying to bring down all
moderate Islamic people and nations and replace them with a religious
caliphate.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: And we are doing our very best to help support the
voices of moderation.

They tried it in the Philippines.

THOMPSON: Who have we invaded before 9/11?

PAUL: We were occupying...

THOMPSON: Occupying?

PAUL: We had an air base in Saudi Arabia.

THOMPSON: A base?
(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: We have propped up -- how many governments have we propped
up?

GIBSON: Just before we -- before we stop, Governor, I owe you a
few seconds. Because you -- somebody said, no, Senator Thompson said
we're not arrogant, we're not bunker mentality.

(CROSSTALK)

HUCKABEE: Well, and those words -- first of all, Governor
Romney, you, yourself on "60 Minutes" said that we had left Iraq in a
mess. You've also said that you weren't going to have this "my way or
no way" philosophy.

And I've been attacked for using the words: a policy that had an
arrogance and bunker mentality. I didn't say the president was. I
supported the president in the war before you did. I supported the
surge when you didn't.

I'm not a person who is out there taking cheap shots at the
president. I worked really hard to get him elected.